Eric Limer

Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney's running mate. No doubt you've already heard. You been hearing about it for hours now, but you didn't hear it first from Romney's dedicated app, which promised punctuality but showed up hours late to the party.

"There's no telling when Mitt will choose his VP. But when he does, be the first to find out with Mitt's VP app," reads the promotional material. In actuality, the Mitt's VP app announced the news at 7:07 AM ET, despite the fact that the cat got out of the bag hours before. That shouldn't come as a big surprise though, Obama tried the same trick with text messages back in 2008 and was similarly unsuccessful.

"First" is a lofty promise. You'd be hard-pressed to control the increasingly voracious world of political gossip, but that doesn't mean people won't keep trying. In the end, the app will probably be able to mine some data, but as for breaking the news, it's a failure. The question is, did anyone really think it wouldn't be? [The Atlantic]